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‘How many years has it been since we have seen each other?’
At Friendship Park, the westernmost point of the US-Mexico border, just south of San Diego, US Border Patrol agents help to facilitate and monitor weekend reunions between families separated by the massive barrier – and, by extension, by US immigration policies. Mexicans and Americans have met in the area since the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, and the border was redrawn, significantly favouring the US. Friends and families were able to touch one another through the fence before metallic mesh was added in 2011 for security. With quiet compassion, Monument | Monumento captures several of these unconventional and frequently tearful family reunions, some of which have been decades in the making.
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Film and visual culture
A lush animated opus evokes the frenzied pace of modern life
4 minutes
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Family life
The precious family keepsakes that hold meaning for generations
10 minutes
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Neuroscience
This intricate map of a fruit fly brain could signal a revolution in neuroscience
2 minutes
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Archaeology
What did the first people who entered Tutankhamun’s tomb see?
5 minutes
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Information and communication
Coverage of the ‘balloon boy’ hoax forms a withering indictment of for-profit news
17 minutes
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Childhood and adolescence
Marmar is living through a devastating war – but she’d rather tell you about her new dress
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Meaning and the good life
Wander through the English countryside with two teens trying to make sense of the world
10 minutes
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Computing and artificial intelligence
The ‘cloud’ requires heaps of energy to stay aloft. Could synthetic DNA be the answer?
12 minutes
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Art
A puppeteer makes sense of an overwhelming world by shrinking it down to size
5 minutes